Anglican Church Archives Ottawa Diocese

We spent the day at the Anglican Church Archives Ottawa Diocese. They have over 800,000 CMBs for this area in an online database. My husband was particularly looking for members of his "Link" family and he found over 100 records that we extracted into a flat file. It was necessary to type them one by one but was fairly quick work with two of us working on it. Then sort into register numbers and look at the five early registers that were most interesting. His Link family were at Osnabruck from the early 1780s until the first quarter of the 19th century. John Link (bc 1816 Lower Canada) moved to Queensville by 1839 and married Mary Ann Abbes there before 1841. Unfortunately for him, there are few records available for these specific events but he is on the census which is helpful in 1851, 1861, and 1871.

We had packed a small lunch (egg salad sandwiches, a grapefuit drink and an apple) and went for a walk in the Park of the Provinces/Territories and then ate our lunch there. It was cool under the trees and once again one can marvel that a capital city could be so quiet just a few blocks from Parliament Hill. It is a beautiful setting and many people eat their lunch there sitting on the stone walls. Then a walk down to the Ottawa River towards Parliament Hill and back up again. The walk is a strenuous one and left us ready to sit once again and work on the records at the Anglican Church Archives.

These Archives are located at Christ Church Cathedral on Sparks Street. We attend Church there as well. We were the only researchers in the Archives on that day and they are now open three days per week from 8:30 to noon and then 1:00 to 4:30. There are a number of tables to work at (large tables) so it is easy to look at the large registers.

We want to start going to Library and Archives Canada once again. I always have a lot that I can do on our son-in-law's French Canadian ancestry. With hundreds of emigrant ancestors, the trail of many of them travels back through nine generations or more. Some came in the early 1700s making the trail back a little shorter. Many French Canadian family stories have been published and that is quite helpful to lead me to the original records when they are missing from/or hard to find in the Drouin Collection which is online on Ancestry.ca.